The recent wave of positive news around U.S. crypto regulation has been non-stop these past few days. On September 28, the SEC updated its Crypto FAQ, and to put it in plain language: If a truly decentralized protocol is already operating independently, even if it uses the money it earns to buy back tokens, the act of buybacks increasing token value cannot automatically make the token a security in the eyes of the SEC. The biggest impact this has on the industry is that DeFi can finally start taking value capture more seriously. The first impact is: For mature, decentralized protocols, the path of transaction fees → protocol revenue → buybacks/burns → reduced supply now faces less regulatory uncertainty. Going forward, when the market evaluates DeFi, metrics like TVL and APY might not be enough anymore. How much money a protocol earns and how much real cash it can use to consistently buy back its tokens will become increasingly important. The second impact is: decentralization will directly affect whether tokens can benefit from the protocol’s cash flow. If teams still control multisigs, treasuries, upgrade permissions, and economic models, it’ll be hard to fit into this framework. For projects in the U.S., giving up control might no longer just be about claiming “we’re decentralized.” It could directly determine how far tokenomics like buybacks, burns, and fee redistribution can go. So moving forward, buybacks and burns will become a major trend, with many protocols expected to implement token burns.